Search?

On a separate post about an Excel issue, I mentioned post 377111. I did a search for it (and "377,111" without quotes) just entering the number. No matches were found. I searched both the Excel lounge and all forums.

I know the post exists since I was able to find it another way - searching for 2 words. But when I search by words, I have to skip over all newer posts (377111 was in May 2004). I see a drop-down on the search screen to limit the search to something newer than "x" but I want to search within a date range (I may have even asked about this once before) or something older than "x".

Is there some reason why 377111 wasn't found when searching by number and some way to search posts within a date range?

Re: Search?

<P ID="edit" class=small>(Edited by jscher2000 on 23-Dec-05 21:36. )</P>We have a box at the bottom of the page to "go to" a post number. It's very possible that the post number simply is not searched when you do a search (just as text in the user's signature does not appear to be searched).

Edit: Okay, actually, I was able to find that post searching "All Forums" by "Message Number." Not sure what went wrong in your search.

Re: Search?

Thanks Hans (and to the other responders). I understood that - I was expressing a wish for a new feature. When I did my search (on "custom format" since "377111" wasn't working), I had to go thru about 10 pages of newer posts until I got back to May 2004.

Also, I would express another wish. Allowing a search by number is nice - there is a big message saying "For a MessageNumber, enter the bare number, eg 1917" under the "Search For" box. But when one enters that, one has to change the "Search Options" box too to "Message Number". The wish - put a similar big message saying to change the latter.

Re: Search?

<P ID="edit" class=small>(Edited by jscher2000 on 24-Dec-05 11:55. )</P>If the Lounge were to treat all six-digit numbers as message numbers, it would be hard to search for MSKB article numbers.

I was thinking that we could move the Search options drop-down before the text entry, so people thought about the "category" first, but in looking through the drop-down, that wouldn't be logical for the options related to searching in the message body. Hmmm...